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Obama: 'We Don't Have Enough Engineers'
dcblogs writes "President Obama wants to boost engineering graduation rates by 10,000 a year. In 2009, the US produced 126,194 engineering graduates for bachelor's and master's degrees and for Ph.D.s. The US had just over 1.9 million engineers in 2010. The unemployment rate in 2010 for all engineers was 4.5%. 'We've made incredible progress on education, helping students to finance their college educations, but we still don't have enough engineers,' said Obama. He's counting on the private sector to help expand the number of graduates."
"President Obama wants to boost engineering graduation rates by 10,000 a year. (...) The US had just over 1.9 million engineers in 2010. The unemployment rate in 2010 for all engineers was 4.5%." In other words, the US has a total of 85,500 unemployed engineers, but needs to produce an additional 10,000 per year?
China or Germany don't have this problem. They raise their engineers onto pedestals bigger than those the Americans would reserve for bankers.
I am tired of seeing China being referenced as a "good" example of engineer-led country, again and again.
The politburo is consisted of a bunch of top level bureaucrats, who happen to have engineering degree. In fact, people were selected into bureaucracy not because of their engineering degrees, but
A) they joined the party early;
B) they graduated from top universities (E.g. Tsinghua);
C) they actively participated in party sanctioned politics either in their first civilian jobs, or as early as in the university, such as student unions (effective a pre-bureaucracy self-administering the students).
It's hard to believe that anyone really gives a shit about "growing more engineers" domestically, when they keep pushing things like H1Bs, because "it's too expensive". If the supposed scarcity of engineers is real, then engineers would be paid a whole lot more, which would entice more people to go into engineering. Instead, they "artificially" deflate the price of an engineer by just saying "fuck it, we'll bring more in" and then when fewer people want to become engineers as a result, they bitch about that, too.
It's an inevitable result of the whole "engineers have to live within the costs of living in the region they reside, but their employers can pick over the entire globe of labor, including places where the entire cost of living for one engineer is less than the cost of groceries, for another".
I think this has been mentioned here, but wanted to point out from first hand experience... I have a BS in EECE, an MS in Physics, and I took all those
damn courses to get a Ph.D. in EECE (yet to finish dissertation)... as I was going through the Ph.D. program, I witnessed a number of my classmates getting interns at Intel/AMD/etc. Not to be racial (cultural?) but I am a native born anglo-saxon american. All of my classmates are Indian/Asian. I note that I could not get an intern/etc with big companies. My grades were comparable (better), and I had some experience having worked a little between degrees.
A few points. I know a number of these classmates that went on to get jobs at Intel/AMD/Motorola/etc. These are Ph.D.s in EE/EECE/CS. They are paying these guys $37000-$47000 to start, but they give them an H1B visa (or extension), so they are totally happy to take that pay. I am sorry to say it, but a "normal" american who just spent a good deal of cash on this degree just can not get by on this. No offense to any Indian guys (in fact, this is where you have an advantage) but 20 of them can live in a single apartment due to their culture/lifestyle. They have no problems getting $40,000 to start as a Ph.D, where most americans (for better or worse) would balk at that. I was told by one classmate who went on to work at Intel that they practically don't even look at americans for work anymore at that level as they want more to start. /rant
Interestingly, since we americans are no longer going into Ph.D.s in EE/EECE, this creates a catch 22 for the CEOs to go to the govt with. "look, no one is going into the Ph.D. program, give us more H1Bs!"... go look at (for example) Intels job pages. They want Ph.D.s in EE/EECE in mostly other countries now. We will eventually no longer manufacture or design anything here, but for the time being if it helps big companies bottom lines, they will never care if they are destroying us. We will wake up and no one will know how to build or design things here, and then all will be lost.
rant/
td;dl, Companies don't pay as they know H1Bs are cheap, no one goes in due to low wages, a manager at McDonalds can make more. Obama/Congress can not fix that, as they are paid by the same companies saying we need more H1Bs. Hey, I could go be a professor when it is done, but I could make more money asking if you want fries with that at the drive through.
I would suggest shows like "Mythbusters" and "Junkyard Wars", etc. would be more likely to spur an interest in fields like engineering. All "CSI" does is make people think technology is magic.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Having a society based on laziness and celebrating reality TV stars does.
Even documentaries have gone this way in the past 20 years. Up to the 80s they would get some knowledgeable person to talk about the subject, maybe interview some key people and use some explanatory graphics. In the 90s they started making documentaries into dramas, pitching them as the story of how the people involved came up with rival theories and argued and then someone else came along with a "revolutionary" idea... All aided by fancy presentation, breathless voice overs and a lineup of crackpot theories to flesh it out.
Then there is the dumbing down. They no longer say "mass", it has been reduced to "stuff". One sentence could explain the word "mass" and then the viewer would be educated and not feel like a retard who has to be spoken to like a four year old, but that might alienate people who are that dumb. Sod those guys, if you are dumb there is nothing wrong with being made to feel that way by words every school child should know.
I wish the BBC would repeat some episodes of Horizon from the 70s and 80s, not only so people could enjoy them but so they could see just how far we have fallen from those high standards. Today they wouldn't be exciting enough for TV, but I guarantee they will instil a far greater sense of wonder and eagerness to learn. All the time you cater to the lowest common denominator you are fuelling the perception that it is okay to be in in that group.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC